Pain does not discriminate. Men are more likely to deny their emotional struggles and less likely to seek help for them, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t deeply affected by them just the same. We feel emotional pain too.
Psychotherapy for Men
“I love my wife. I’m committed to her. I hate myself for cheating. Why did I do it? And worse, why do I worry I’ll do it again someday?”
Research shows that psychotherapy can be helpful for a wide range of emotional issues, including depression, anxiety, and anger management, as well as relationship and intimacy issues.
Psychotherapy isn’t one-size-fits-all, however. There are many cases when men in therapy require a different approach. For instance, when men experience emotional distress, we often unconsciously defend against our pain in ways that cause us to overlook, misinterpret, or minimize it. This comes at a great cost (to ourselves and our relationships).
Another example of how men and women differ in this regard is that men often experience the emotional struggle itself in a different way. For example, depression in men may exhibit more as anger or an agitated state than the pervasive sadness that women report feeling. And quite often the anger will mask the underlying depression that may be at the root of the anger itself.
Men are also socialized to be cut off from their emotional lives, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with the challenges that come with emotional intimacy and the vulnerability that paves the way for interpersonal connection. Many men can remember hearing some version of “crying is for babies” from role models when they were children. Add to that the societal ideal of the “strong, silent type,” and you can understand why so many men feel uncomfortable admitting the need for help (or even needing others), expressing their emotions in a “softer” way, or even being directly in touch with their own emotions.
Men’s Counseling Issues
“My friends tell me I’ve ‘made it.’ They say they envy my career, my house, my car, the expensive trips I take. So why is it that none of it makes me happy?”
Over the last twenty years, I have worked with hundreds of men on a wide range of issues. The work I do is geared toward the psychological challenges that men face. These include:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Infidelity
- Trauma (including childhood physical/sexual abuse)
- Secrecy/deception
- Self-sabotage
- Avoidance of intimacy/emotional closeness
- Struggles with self-worth
- Sexual acting out (sex addiction, excessive porn use)
- Feeling chronically unfulfilled
- Struggles with anger and defensiveness
The list above is not exhaustive, of course, but what’s more important to note is that a mere list cannot capture the complexity and nuance of our emotional lives. Unlike healing a broken arm, for instance, the path toward emotional wholeness is rarely straightforward, and no two people’s situations or histories are alike.
Specializing in Therapy for Men
“I doubt myself all the time. Even when I do well on the job, I’m sure it’s a fluke. I’m just counting the days till I get unmasked for the imposter I know I am.”
Some men come to me because they’re exhausted by leading a double life; they’ve created a world of secrecy that they feel deeply ashamed about, but since they’ve lived that way for so long and have told so many intricate and substantial lies, they don’t know how to start living authentically.
Some men report feeling like an imposter all the time, despite extrinsic successes and achievements; they feel a deep, pervasive sense of inadequacy they can’t manage to shake, and often, the self-punishing inadequacy is intensified when others praise these men or laud them for jobs well done.
Other men who seek therapy with me are stuck in a pattern of chasing something they think will help them feel good about themselves—i.e., money, power, status, new relationship highs—as they desperately seek a way to elevate their self-esteem. . .only to find that this chase leads nowhere.
Many men I’ve worked with in counseling have come to me because they’re tired of numbing (or distracting) themselves through sex, alcohol, drugs, overworking, gambling, gaming in excess, and they’re tired of what that chronic numbing is doing to their relationships and their work life.
“I feel like I sabotage myself at every turn. I know this sounds ‘out there,’ but sometimes it feels like I’m a puppet and someone else is pulling the strings. And the puppeteer doesn’t mean me well.”
In many of these cases, these men remain cut off from themselves, estranged from the emotional richness within them. They experience a disconnection from their own feelings, and that often comes with an inability to identify and express what they’re needing in a relationship, as well as an inability to clearly hear what their partner is expressing and needing.
In my work with men, therapy becomes a journey back toward the self that had been left behind.
Contact Dr. Rich Nicastro (Austin Clinical Psychologist)
If you’d would like to discuss your treatment needs or set up an initial appointment, please feel free to contact me. I can be reached at (512) 931-9128 or rich@RichardNicastro.com
**Telecounseling sessions (video online sessions) are available for Texas residents**
**In addition to Texas, Dr. Nicastro is now offering teletherapy to people residing in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia (DC), Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.**
Rich Nicastro, PhD is an Austin, Texas based psychologist with over twenty years experience conducting individual and marriage/couples counseling. He specializes in counseling for men and works with client’s on a wide range of emotional issues.